President of the Nigerian Medical Association ( NMA), Dr Francis Faduyile, has said the more cases would be discovered if more tests were carried out.
Faduyile, in an interview, called for an increase in the country’s testing capacity for COVID-19.
He said, “There is no doubt that we need to step up our testing capacity. Not doing enough tests means we don’t know the total number of cases we have. We cannot plan appropriately to take care of those who are infected and those who have not been tested and do not know their status. Such people are sources of transmission to the general populace.”
The NMA president also warned that Nigeria risked full-blown transmission of COVID-19 if people continued to flout the Federal Government lockdown order.
Despite the lockdown order, a lot of people are still seen on the streets, especially in Abuja and Lagos where the curve for coronavirus cases has been on the rise.
Faduyile said although economic reality in the country had made it difficult for people to stay at home, it was important to make the sacrifice to stay at home to avert a major health crisis.
He said, “We still have a heightening of the slope and it will take some time to flatten it. That will, however, depend on how much our people obey the government order on stay at home and the FG’s commitment and intervention to ensure the order on physical distancing is obeyed.
“Economic reality makes people rebuff the order, but if we have a full-blown epidemic in Nigeria, we will know why it is important to obey the stay at home order.”It should be noted that Nigeria has so far recorded 323 cases of the pandemic in nineteen states.”
